Mobile Analytics: A Guide for Business Owners and Non-Technical Specialists

On average, people spend nearly 5 hours a day on their smartphones—ordering food, paying for purchases, streaming music, chatting—all via mobile apps.

Apps have become a central tool for sales and customer engagement, often showing higher conversion rates than websites. Many companies invest heavily in building and promoting mobile apps, but not all know how to measure their real effectiveness.

In this article, we explain what mobile analytics is, what metrics businesses need to pay attention to in order to understand user behavior, and what analytics services to use for this purpose.

Why Mobile Analytics Matters

Too often, businesses equate success with install counts. But installs alone are not enough. You might have thousands of app downloads, yet many users never open the app again—let alone use features that generate revenue. Outwardly, it may seem everything is going great, but behind the scenes, the project could be bleeding money.

For example, in one of our fashion app market studies, we saw that Android apps have more downloads, but iOS generates more revenue. This is a striking example of how one platform can be more effective than another in terms of revenue.
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Mobile analytics enables you to answer the real questions: Who is installing? Where do they learn about the app? What are they doing? Why are they leaving? Who among them is paying? It doesn’t just show raw numbers—it reveals the story behind them: which campaigns are working, which audience segments are profitable, where your funnel is leaking, and how to fix it.

Types of Mobile Analytics

All mobile analytics can be grouped into two core categories:

1. Marketing Analytics (User Attribution)

This focuses on understanding where users come from and what marketing channels drive engagement and revenue. It answers:

• Which platforms (Google, Facebook, TikTok, etc.) drive traffic?
  
• Which campaigns or creatives perform best?
  
• How much does it cost to acquire a paying user?
  

With these insights, you can stop wasting ad spend and double down on effective channels.

Common tools used: AppsFlyer, Adjust, Firebase (especially for teams running ads in the Google ecosystem).

2. Product Analytics (In-App Behavior)

This shows how users interact with your app. It helps you discover:

• Which features users engage with most?
  
• Where users are dropping off?
  
• What actions lead to revenue?
  

This helps improve UX, increase conversions, and retain users. Often, such services have functionality for A/B testing, allowing you to test your hypotheses for improving the application. This is another way to protect yourself from unnecessary expenses.

Top tools: Amplitude, Mixpanel, and Firebase.

Marketing Analytics: Attribution Tools

So, you've created your app and are ready to release it to the world to find your users. You may even have some users already. But how do you find out how these users found you? How do you understand where the best traffic came from? How do you optimize advertising for events in the app? How do you understand that the money invested in advertising is not wasted? This is where marketing analytics comes in handy, allowing you to answer these and other questions with the help of attribution.

What Is Attribution?

A marketing analytics service, or MMP (Mobile Measurement Partners), is a system that links advertising and behavior within an app. It allows you to accurately track which ad brought the user to the app, what they did next, and whether they generated revenue.
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The main task of such a service is to determine where the user came from. If they came from several channels in a short period of time, then determine which channel is considered the main source. This process is called attribution. 

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When the owner of the install is found, the install data is sent back to the advertising account for optimization. And then, if the user converts in the app, this information is also sent back to the advertising account for campaign optimization.

‍In the analytics service, you will see statistics on events and conversions by channel. The advertising service will receive feedback on campaigns and optimize them.

Who needs this?

Anyone who uses or plans to use paid promotion channels.

User Attribution Challenges with iOS 14+

Until 2021, when iOS 14 (Apple's operating system) was released, analytics could run on almost any device without hindrance. However, with the release of iOS 14, this has changed. Now, every app is required to ask users with iOS 14+ if they agree to the app tracking user analytics (since today this is practically all Apple smartphones — be prepared for this). And if they refuse, analytics must stop collecting user data. This was a significant blow to the advertising market, because if we don't have information about users, we can't effectively optimize advertising.

But along with the restrictions, Apple provided SKAN technology, which allows you to analyze the effectiveness of advertising for users who have not given their consent.

The idea behind SKAN is to anonymize such users as much as possible, while still obtaining information about installations and interactions with the app.

However, the data obtained is generalized, devoid of any user identifiers, and arrives with a delay. Accordingly, real-time optimization is not possible. There are also restrictions on how many conversions can be tracked. SKAN only works with advertising platforms that have integrated this technology, such as Google Ads and Meta.

More articles on Mobile Marketing:
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‍In-App Events and Promotional Content: Tools for Enhancing App User Loyalty
8 (Un)Trivial Questions to Ask a Mobile Specialist: What You Need to Know Before Promoting a Mobile App
App Store Ads: A Complete Guide to Advertising in the App Store

Key Metrics for Marketing Analytics

To measure the success of your mobile app marketing, track the following key metrics:

• Installs – Number of app downloads
  
• Attribution Source – Where the user came from (ad platform, campaign, creative)
  
• Click-Through Rate (CTR) – Clicks divided by impressions
  
• Conversion Rate – Installs divided by clicks
  
• Cost per Install (CPI) – How much you pay per new install
  
• Event Count – Number of tracked in-app actions
  
• Revenue – Income generated, often segmented by source
  
• ARPU / ARPPU – Average revenue per user / paying user
  
• ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) – Revenue compared to ad costs
  
• LTV (Lifetime Value) – Total value a user brings over their time in the app
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Additional options:

• Cohort Analysis – Comparing behavior of groups of users acquired at the same time
  
• Retention Rates (D1, D7, D30, etc.) – How many users return after the first day, week, or month
  
• Filtering by Source, Geo, Device – Helps compare the quality of traffic from different channels
  
  

Most Popular Marketing Analytics Platforms and Their Features

Firebase

Pros:

• Free tool from Google
  
• Great for product analytics
  
• Deep integration with Google Ads
  

Cons:

• Doesn’t work well with multi-channel advertising (e.g. Facebook, TikTok)
  
• Limited support for user attribution outside the Google ecosystem
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Important: Firebase does not replace full attribution if you work with multiple channels. But it can be suitable as a marketing analytics service for teams that use paid promotion exclusively through Google Ads, as well as ASO on Android.

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AppsFlyer

Pros:

• Connects to all major advertising platforms — Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, ASA, DSP, etc.
• Intuitive user-friendly interface, many ready-made reports.
• Ability to export raw data via API.
• Very well-written help section, many step-by-step guides for all situations. Excellent support, quick responses.
• Suitable for any business, but more profitable for small and medium traffic volumes.
• Has a convenient solution for web2app that allows you to redirect users from the site to applications with tracking of the original source. We will talk about this separately below.

Cons:

• With large traffic volumes, the tariff becomes more expensive, so it is worth discussing this with Appsflyer representatives right away.
• If you want to upload raw data to third-party services, keep in mind that API will require additional costs.
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Adjust

Pros:

• It works with all major advertising networks.
• It has a convenient free API, often chosen by product teams with high traffic.
• More favorable rates for medium and large businesses compared to competitors.
  

Cons:

• The interface is more technical and less intuitive.
• There is less flexibility in creating custom reports.
• The help section is poorly written, and it is often difficult to find solutions to problems that arise during configuration.
• SKAN (iOS 14) reports are less user-friendly.
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How to Choose a Marketing Analytics System for Your App

Before choosing a platform, define your needs. Key considerations include:

1. High-quality attribution of app installs and events to their sources.
   It must take into account multi-channel attribution (to avoid situations where one conversion is attributed to three sources at once), be able to attribute iOS users (work with SKADNetwork), and be integrated with all your advertising platforms.
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2. Business metric analytics
   ROAS, LTV, retention, event price, etc. Since MMR distributes traffic across channels, it must also provide the ability to analyze how effective those channels are.
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3. Solutions for deep links (they are also used to distribute traffic sources)
   In this case, a deep link is a special link that leads to an application and allows you to track the source of traffic (advertising, email, social networks). For example, AppsFlyer OneLink is a type of deep link that automatically recognizes the platform, directs the user to the appropriate store, and, after installation, opens the app with all the information about the channel, campaign, ad, etc.
   
   
4. Flexibility in working with raw data
   Raw data is unprocessed data about the user and their interaction with the application. It is used to build custom reports. If you need raw data, you need to understand how much it may cost in the service you choose.
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5. Fraud protection
   Not necessary, but good to have from a financial point of view. AF and Adjust charge for conversions from paid channels. And if you have a lot of fraud, you are overpaying for traffic that is not real.
   

Let's compare the services in terms of important features:

To sum it up:

Firebase is a great starting point for teams focused on Google Ads and ASO on Android. But it's not suitable for multichannel marketing.

As for the battle between Appsflyer and Adjust, it would be best for you to contact managers from both sides, describe your needs, and listen to what they have to offer and at what cost. In terms of technical requirements, these services are equally good. When choosing, consider the price and your personal preferences.

Web2App Tracking (Monitoring Web2App Activity)

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If you run both a website and a mobile app, you likely get users moving from one to the other. For example, a person may click a Google ad, land on your website, and then install the app.

Without Web2App tracking, your analytics might lose track of where that user came from. It might incorrectly report them as “organic” instead of from a paid campaign.

Web2App tracking ensures that this journey is preserved. It correctly attributes the app install to the original source—even if the user switched devices or platforms.

This is especially useful when optimizing web-based campaigns aimed at driving mobile app installs.

How Web2App Tracking Works

Without Web2App tracking, web analytics will see the source as Google Ads, track all user interactions on the site up to the click on the app button, and attribute them to Google Ads.

But when you go to the app, the original source will be lost and replaced with Organic or Site. You won't know what actually brought the user to the app. The purchase will be attributed to Organic or Site.

Web2App tracking correctly identifies the source of your user. That is, in the case described, the mobile analytics service will show that the user came from Google Ads.

It allows you to send information about this user's conversions back to Google Ads. Accordingly, Google Ads can use this data to optimize web campaigns for in-app purchases.

How to Set Web2App Tracking Up?

A separate service is usually not necessary. This is done using additional AF or Adjust settings.

But it is worth considering that Web2App is more of an add-on to analytics than a core product. There is no point in creating a Web2App until you have ready-made marketing analytics that will allow you to launch Web2App advertising and recoup the cost of this setting.

Conclusion

To effectively evaluate advertising, user behavior, and app usability, you need specialized analytics systems. Implementing them requires time, resources, and team involvement:

• analysts — to prepare technical specifications,
• developers — to implement integrations,
• product team or marketing — for daily work with data, launching campaigns, and evaluating effectiveness.

Analytics is the basis for marketing decisions. Without analytics:

• Advertising works at random. It is easy to “blow” the budget.
• There is no understanding of the product. How to improve, what to remove, what to add — everything is based on guesswork.
• It is impossible to scale.

There are many mobile analytics tools, and you need to decide which ones are right for you.
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FAQs

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Can FB SDK replace AppsFlyer and Adjust?

Facebook SDK is a tool from Meta that integrates into mobile applications and allows you to track installations, events, and purchases from the Meta channel, transfer data to Ads Manager, create audiences, and optimize campaigns.

‍Previously, small projects that only worked with Facebook could get by with just the FB SDK. But with iOS restrictions, this is no longer effective, as the SDK will only fully cover Android.

The FB SDK is also not suitable for multichannel marketing — it does not allow for accurate conversion attribution, which leads to poor budget allocation decisions.

Conclusion: if you are just starting to set up and want to experiment exclusively with Facebook advertising on Android, you can use the FB SDK. In all other cases, you need to choose an MMP.

What are the limitations on tracking data from the iOS platform?

There are no restrictions for users who have agreed to tracking. For those who have prohibited tracking, SKAN technology is used, which allows combining information about advertising interaction and conversion, but has many limitations. More details about this can be found above in the article.

What are the terms for implementing Mobile Analytics systems?

Implementing a mobile analytics system involves creating and configuring an account, writing technical specifications for developers, implementing those specifications, and testing and modifying the implementation as necessary. It takes 1-2 weeks to prepare the technical specifications themselves, and further deadlines depend on how quickly and efficiently your developers implement these specifications. The average time for full implementation, including testing, is 2 months.

Are there any alternative marketing analytics services?

Yes, there are alternative marketing analytics services, such as Singular, Kochava, Tenjin, and Branch. Each of them has its own specialization: some focus on attribution, others on deep linking or budget analytics. Compared to universal platforms such as AppsFlyer or Adjust, they are used less frequently but can be very effective in certain scenarios.

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